The secret ingredient.
A reflection on the worry that comes in the good times and how to combat it.
I am still reeling from what God has done, and been doing in my marriage, community and life. It feels irreverent to move on yet.
But perhaps that is because I am not supposed to move on yet.
Perhaps we are supposed to stay in this place of awe-filled reverence when we experience the breakthrough that we have been longing for, praying for.
Perhaps the tugging in me to move on is actually partly fuelled by the fear that if I stay too long in this place of exuberant thankfulness I won’t have the grit to engage with the everyday nit and grit of life that is bound to come my way.
Perhaps there is also a fear that at any point I could ‘wake up’ and find this reality ‘just a dream’.
Perhaps I have not yet fully grasped the goodness of God.
It is a goodness that is unlike anything that I have ever seen or found.
It has no end and has no bounds.
I deep dive fully expecting to find a bottom to its depths, to find a limit to its edges, or a stopping of its currents.
But instead I find a never ceasing fountain of goodness that flows, and pours, and pursues.
Too long we have measured God’s goodness through the criteria of our human experiences. ‘It can’t be good if it doesn’t look like this’, ‘ It can’t be good if it doesn’t feel like that’.
When will we finally conclude that He cannot be anything other than good? He is intrinsically good, beyond our understanding, timing, and criterias.
I questioned His goodness so many times during the long years of mental health struggles, and marital breakdowns. I questioned how my painful reality could ever be reconciled with the truth of His goodness.
Yet, in those years my heart would repeat over and over again, a verse I did not write myself but one I that captured the essence of my hope
Psalm 27:13 ‘I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.’
Both a declaration and a heart cry.
The declaration: ‘I believe that God’s goodness can and will breakthrough for me.’
The heartcry: ‘Lord do it for me whilst I still walk the land of the living. Let me see with my two eyes the breakthrough that I have been praying for, the miracles that I need.’
My cry mingled with faith and hope, declaration and heartbreak.
The tension that we always have, whether in the valley or on the mountain tops.
The tension of the Kingdom of heaven, that is here and still to yet to fully come.
The tension of His goodness manifest but also not yet fully manifested.
The reality of great faith, and great pain.
But these are the tensions that form us and forge us. These are the moments that define the types of people we are and will become.
Oh that we would be faithful children so confident in the character of our Father, unmoved by the external appearance of our circumstances.
It is a big ask, I know my heart, so feeble and fragile at times; so easily swayed, so easily tired out.
I guess that is why staying in the place of thankfulness is a bit like the secret ingredient.
We praise and thank God for all that He has done, following in the pattern of the ancient Israelites, who like a mantra, repeated the good works of God done on their behalf not just in their lives but in the generations before them.1
What would happen if we draw our faith, not only from the goodness of God we have seen in our lives, but from what we have seen in the lives of others?
Perhaps it would make staying in the place of awe-filled thankfulness less alien, less scary.
Perhaps it would shift the lingering fear of a ‘rude awakening’.
Perhaps it would strengthen us, and not detract from us, the ability to endure in the gritty, nitty moments.
Perhaps the result would be that others too would see this confident hope of mine, that ‘I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.’
Happy Monday Friends :)
I hope you are all well,
After the events of these last couple of weeks, I feel like something new has been unlocked in me, a new level of faith, of praise, of expectation for what God can and wants to do. It feels unfamiliar to me, like I have entered a different floor of a big department store, the essence is the same but the arrangement is different, and the height from the ground elevated. But unlike a department store there are no stairs or lifts that will allow me to go back down to previous levels.
It’s beautiful that once the God has moved you to the next ‘level’ or season, the only way out is to forfeit it all. Once you have the revelation, you can’t loose it.
I had a load of blog posts scheduled and ready to go, but I am different now and those posts seems as if from a different life.
So here we are, writing from freshness of a new season I am not yet fully used to.
If you are contending for breakthrough, or persevering in the season you are in right now, I pray that my writings will bring hope and strength as you stay the course fierce friend.
Love, Anna x
One of my most favourite things that the Israelites do whenever they were faced with impossible circumstances. They would start to recall the history of God’s promise to them and their ancestors, as well as all the mighty deeds he has already done, an example of this is 2 Chronicles 30.
Wow Anna this is so powerful! I know this will encourage so many. I’ve been in a similar place. Not necessarily in personal breakthrough, but a new season, a new positioning. And to experience and know Gods goodness for me and my family fills me with awe everyday! “He is faithful and loving to all that he has made” psalm 145:9 “taste and see that the Lord is good” psalm 34:8 And yes let’s be like the Israelites, remembering and declaring His goodness!